Proposal form

Ideas: I have chosen to make a rock/indie magazine that will contain already existing bands and a new band that will be featured on the front cover, contents page and article. I have researched examples of these magazines to find general conventions of what I intend to create.

Genre: I chose to create a rock/indie magazine as although there are several already on the market I believe there is a gap for the music I am choosing to feature as there are not many that divert from their main genre of music in order to promote new artists. There will be the theme of rock and indie throughout my magazine to keep to the conventions of a magazine.

Target Audience: I am aiming my magazine at 14-20 year old mixed gender as this will widen my audience and will appeal to more people. I intend to make it unisex by keeping a theme of black, red and white as this not only represents the genre of my magazine but it appeals to everybody.

Major Conventions: My magazine will follow the obvious conventions of a magazine, including things such as titles, subtitles, pictures, banners ect. This is so it looks professional.

Model Permission

I asked my models for permission before using their photos and made sure they were happy with the photos I was using before choosing to publish them. I felt this was necessary to make sure as if the photo was to become widespread then it is better if they approve of them.

Marjorie Fergison's Theory

There are four different types of facial expressions that are used on the front of magazine covers. These were discovered my Marjorie Fergison.

Super Smiler

Chocolate Box

Invitational

Romantic/sexual

IPC research

Reader Profile

Wenner Media LLC

Rolling Stone was founded in 1967 by Jann Wenner and Ralph J. Gleason. It was named after Muddy Waters s1950’s song “Rollin’ Stone.” It was originally aimed at an older age group by focusing on music coverage and politics however in 1990 it was adapted to appeal to a younger audience by introducing television shows, actors and popular music.  Recently the magazine has returned to its old ways by incorporating political stories. The magazine shifted its focus in 1980 towards celebrity entertainment, this included celebrity gossip, television, music and pop culture. This led to the introduction of the annual “Hot edition.”

 

The magazine was created to distance itself from underground press magazines, this created a new genre of magazines and it was something nobody had ever seen before. Wenner believed the magazine was “not just about the music, but about the things and attitudes that music embraces.”

 

Rolling Stone has had a website running for several years. This includes articles, reviews, blogs, mp3’s, artist encyclopaedias and a new archive of every article ever published. This again widened the target audience as people that did not have time to sit and read a magazine were able to access the articles they wanted to read online as and when they wanted to.

 

The magazine is owned and published by Wenner Media LLC along with Men’s Journal and US Weekly. Wenner Media LLC is owned by Jann Wenner. However the company was only developed because of the magazine, Rolling Stone influenced Wenner to create this company which is now home to two other major magazines.

 

My Magazine Pitch

Our next task is to create our own music magazine. To start this task off we had to make our own pitch that will include typical music magazine conventions. After researching music magazines to find out more about their front covers, contents pages and feature articles as well as the information i have gathered on the typical features included in music magazines today and stereotypical conventions of a music magazine i have decided on the way i want to create my magazine.I've decided i want my front cover to include a high quality image with subtitles included on the bottom of the page. I will continue these conventions through to my contents page as well as my feature article. I will use Adobe Photoshop to create and edit my magazine to maintain a high quality piece of work. The genre of music i have decided to aim this magazine at is Pop/Indie/Rock. My primary target audience will be young males and females aged between 14-20 and my secondary target audience will be older males and females aged 20+